Dinner last night with the in-laws involved my usual Thanksgiving Day routine: wine, food, sleep. While I often go to the movies on Thanksgiving, I passed on it in favor of that comfy couch and throw pillow, and my SILs saw Four Christmases without me while my children went night swimming with their cousins without me (have I mentioned before that I love California weather?).
In light of my dog’s health issues, I didn’t want to leave the Notorious F.O.X. at home for the day, so she joined us for Thanksgiving and managed to uproot one of Mother in Law’s rosebushes while there. Thanks, dog. Thanks for that.
That rosebush had it coming!
Thanksgiving feast consisted of turkey for the meat eaters and Tofurkey for the veggies. I made a gluten, soy, dairy, and egg-free pumpkin pie and cornbread for The Boy to eat with his turkey and Mother in Law surprised me with this Thanksgiving present:
I’m all shook up.
While some of you might think this is a bottle of wine, all you have to do is turn it on its side to realize it is, in fact, a gun:
Just imagine how I acted AFTER drinking the wine…
Happy post T-day, y’all. Hope your days were equally eventful.
(My apologies to anyone who read the title of this post and automatically assumed it was going to be about the presidential election.)
In anticipation of Thanksgiving, Electrolux and Kelly Ripa are on a Quest for the Perfect Turkey. If you visit Electrolux Appliances and click on Kelly Confidential, you can log in and join the quest. Among other things, they’ve asked us to share our best Turkey Tale, in our medium of choice: photo, story, video. All Turkey Tale-Tellers who submit before November 14th will be entered for a chance to win an Electrolux wall oven or range with the Perfect Turkey™ button, which means, yes, you no longer have to fret on T-Day. (The Perfect Turkey™ button from Electrolux uses a temperature probe to precisely control cooking, along with a convection system that gently browns the turkey while sealing in the juices)
Here’s my contribution to the Thanksgiving legacy:
When Husband and I moved into our first home together, it was shortly before Thanksgiving. He was selling the houses in the neighborhood and therefore knew all of our neighbors. He knew that a few of them had no plans for Thanksgiving because their family lived elsewhere, and that is how we wound up having two sets of neighbors to our house for our first Thanksgiving, in addition to his brother and sisters and parents and significant others.
I’d never really cooked a big meal before, and now I found myself cooking Thanksgiving dinner for seventeen people.
I was determined to dazzle and impress and would not be daunted by my lack of cooking experience. I’d cooked a whole chicken, once, for some kids I babysat. Surely, that meant I could handle Thanksgiving dinner.
I prepared several days in advance, buying ingredients, deciding when to make what. I started off by serving wine and homemade bread that rocked the house. The rest of the meal went slightly off-kilter. The vegetable casserole was heavy on the cream of mushroom soup. The garlic roasted mashed potatoes had garlic that wasn’t so well-roasted. The fresh cranberries had too much vinegar and not enough sugar. The pumpkin cheesecake was, frankly, disgusting. And our pièce de résistance, the turkey, was cooked for however many hours UPSIDE-DOWN. I honestly have no idea how I managed to do that. I mean, really, what part of me thought, yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to look, but I did it. Of course, the turkey was still edible as was everything else, so all’s well that ends well. And thank goodness I make a mean sweet potato soufflé. That’s the only dish I contribute to Thanksgiving these days.
